Both ComputerLand and Radio Shack sponsored computer and robotics groups in Gillette Wyoming from 1979-or-so, but I lived far from town so wasn't able to attend much of it. I did hijack the local 4-H club with Popular Electronics projects and ideas from Byte magazine. Until the IBM PC and Mac, everything was 8-bit. Again, everything was remote, so I ended up getting into Apple-Cat modem tricks (phreaking), running a BBS, and later (1983??) getting a used PDP-11 and running UUCP (email and Usernet), for quite a few accounts for that quadrant of WY for a while (using a Trailblazer 9600 baud modem - I had to mow lawns for 6 months to buy that thing).
I'm sorry that I don't have many UG stories, because everybody was so far flung, it was hard to be intensely (or interactively, at least) social about it!
By the time I got to college (RHIT - Rose-Hulman), it was all men, all engineering, all the time, so there wasn't much need for an independed UG.
I feel as if I was "in the culture", but not "part of the gang" for much of that period. The WELL started about the time I was finishing up high-school, but it was a lot of fun, and made me sad about what I had been missing out on...
I'm sorry that I don't have many UG stories, because everybody was so far flung, it was hard to be intensely (or interactively, at least) social about it!
By the time I got to college (RHIT - Rose-Hulman), it was all men, all engineering, all the time, so there wasn't much need for an independed UG.
I feel as if I was "in the culture", but not "part of the gang" for much of that period. The WELL started about the time I was finishing up high-school, but it was a lot of fun, and made me sad about what I had been missing out on...